According to someone I trust, I don’t pick up on sarcasm very well. I guess she was tired of me ruining her jokes or something.
I have always been kind of gullible and trusting, so I’m not very surprised that I have this flaw. I am able to detect the “yeah, right” type of sarcasm–the most obvious kind. But if someone slides in absurdity while keeping a straight face, chances are I will accept it as truth. There’s a guy at work whose default setting is “jokester” and he’s always been this way as long as I have known him, and yet I still have a hard time not interpreting him literally. It’s like I can’t learn from past “gotchas”. Sometimes I sense his frustration with me when I “correct” him or ask for clarification, like he thinks I’m being a stick-in-the-mud on purpose. But I’ve got a great sense of humor. It’s just that…I dunno. I just can’t detect sarcasm very well. I think it’s why I sometimes feel exhausted when I’m with people. All the misunderstandings wear me out, and I feel embarrassed from looking like an idiot.
I used to work with a guy that was always taking advantage of my gullible nature. Tired of being the “fool” all the time, I started being skeptical whenever he would tell me something. Which wasn’t wise. One day we were backing the boat down the ramp and he warned me about alligators lurking in the water. I laughed at him and told him to quit playing. No way I was going to be tricked again! But then he grabbed me and pulled me out of the water. Sure enough, there was a giant monster a few feet away my feet. Dumb monstro.
Anyone dealt with this before, either in themselves or in someone else? Is it possible for me to overcome this so late in the game?
Consider it a sign of good character. You take things on face value, as they appear to be. You default to an assumption of good faith. You use the means of communication to communicate, rather than to impede actual communication.
The alternatives are not pleasant. Sarcasm, irony, pedantry, etc. They get in the way of actual meetings of minds.
Stay the way you are. It reflects an innocence, an integrity, and a pleasant nature, which are much more valuable to you than the kind of constant skepticism, intense scrutiny, and unceasing suspicion that would be needed to spot sarcasm every time it pops up.
(And…no! This post is not composed in sarcasm. It might seem so, but, in all sincerity, I prefer a straightforward approach to life – even a slightly naive one – to the kind of pseudo-sophistication that sees all conversation as a game to be played against each other.)
How do you feel about David Letterman? I think his shtick relies a lot on the sort of deliberate absurdity that you say tends to go by you, so I’d be curious to hear if he leaves you cold.
I don’t think that sarcasm and irony are inhibitors to good communication. I think that they are another, and sometimes very subtle way to communicate. When some says something rapier sharp, but with a straight face, they go up in my estimation. You’ll lock eyes and realize, we’re going to have fun, aren’t we? I think that sometimes people who don’t enjoy that kind of communication think that we’re trying to trick the other person, or make them look studpid, we’re usually just trying to keep our minds sharp and have some fun.
For example, one time at work we were talking about where people were from. A colleague asked me and I said I live in DC (our office is in Maryland). She said, yeah, but where are you from? and I said “I don’t know, they found me in a basket on the Potomac River when I was 33 years old.”
This guy in my office said, “nuh-uh, that’s not true,” like he had really caught me in a lie. Dude, relax I was just making a stupid little joke before I head back to my desk.
High five, humor buddy. I can’t interpret deadpan sarcasm well, unless it’s very obvious hyperbole or a joke I’ve heard before. Maybe it’s partially an inborn trait, but I think it has something to do with how your parents raised you. There was not a lot of benignly-sarcastic humor in my home growing up. Almost all the sarcasm I heard between my parents was nasty and mean-spirited, meant to be taken seriously. And that’s a lot of programming to overcome.
There’s a time and a place, and I can detect very obvious sarcasm. I’m getting better at it the older I get. But I tire of people who default to sarcasm on a daily basis. I don’t trust chronically-sarcastic people. It’s kinda like the boy who cried wolf, which is well-illustrated with your alligator anecdote. You can’t expect people to take you seriously if you never take yourSELF seriously, you know? Sarcasm is best applied with a light hand, not with every conversation you engage in.
In our house the first language is English, the second is sarcasm. Always has been.
My son, who grew up in the house, doesn’t get it. After fifteen years, his wiring just isn’t right to understand it. It helps if he thinks it through - but he doesn’t really do that quickly even after all the practice he’s had.
The strange thing is that sometimes he is quick with it himself. He’s Asian, I went to a band concert at his school where he was really easy to pick out because all the kids were a little white - and I said something. He came right back with “did you need sunglasses, Mom?” So sometimes, its there.
My go-to for topical humor is John Stewart, but I enjoy Stephen Colbert. Perhaps because the entire show is a joke, it’s easier for me to suspend my disbelief.
Not sure I get it. Sarcasm is largely delivered by voice inflection, accenting a specific word, drawing attention to the subject matter etc. So what you are saying is you are not able to pick up on the verbal and non verbal cues of sarcasm?
I see a difference between someone who teases using your gullible nature as a tool against you vs someone who uses sarcasm to make their point.
I do say “Are you serious?” or “Are you for real?” a lot. The ensuing laughter answers my question. But asking doesn’t keep me from feeling like an idiot.
When I say I have a sense of humor, I mean that I usually know exactly what to say to make people laugh. I’m a classic class clown (Voted Most Humorous of my senior class!) But the reverse isn’t exactly true. While everyone is busting their guts over a joke, I’m usually fake-laughing in the corner, trying to figure out what subtext I’m missing. Most times I totally get a joke, but it just isn’t funny to me and I’m left wondering why everyone else is ROTFL. Yet I will crack up for days over something random like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg.
I think people should try to be humorous as much as they can, because well-placed humor makes social interaction fun.
But when I’m with someone who’s always using the same “tricks” and I keep being snared by them…well, it wouldn’t hurt for this person to switch gears and try to be funny in another way. After the millionth “gotcha!”, it stops being funny and I start feeling like I’m the butt of a long-running joke.
Interesting. It sounds like you are comfortable with how you define what’s Funny - even confident about it. You enter into a situation feeling that you know Funny. It seems to bias you against listening for sarcasm, perhaps because it is a part of the Funny Toolkit you tend not to use. ???